


Alike

by Quaggy



Series: Nora Lyman [2]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 09:14:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6232966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quaggy/pseuds/Quaggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set far in the future, Donna watches her daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alike

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted Jan. 2, 2007. Written in celebration of a friend giving birth to a little girl.

You watch your daughter thread her way through the party occasionally stopping to converse with people she knows. It seems like it was yesterday she was singing “I’m Just A Bill" at the top of her lungs. Come to think of it, it WAS just yesterday. She’s at that age when she can be a child one moment and grown up the next.  
  
People say she’s like you, but you don’t see it. You know your son takes after you. Even if he hadn’t had your coloring, you both have the same quiet, gentle disposition. But Nora... Nora is Josh’s clone. She has his eyes, his curls, his dimples. His passion. And his lungs. She has his temper, too. Which she is trying desperately to control right now as she talks to Senator Talrick’s youngest son, Paul. She doesn’t want to make a scene at her father’s fundraiser. Unfortunately, the young man in question does not share her restraint. He has been standing too close, talking too loud and drinking too much. Though you can’t hear the conversation, you have a bad feeling that he is assuming (not asking) that she will sleep with him. She turns to leave him and in retaliation, his arm shoots out, not to get her to stay... but to push her into the pool. He laughs at the splash she makes.  
  
You’ll kill the little bastard.  
  
One glance at your husband tells you that he has seen the whole thing. He turns back to a very embarrassed Senator Talrick, fury etched across his face. You can’t hear what Josh says, but you don’t need to. Senator Talrick’s face has turned white and his eyes are set on his son with a cold anger. You wouldn’t want to be little Paulie Talrick tonight. Or for the next year, you’d bet.  
  
Your daughter surfaces once to take a breath and then swims like a fish to the other end of the pool and you watch as she emerges from the water with grace and poise. (You wonder for a moment if C.J. gave her lessons should just this occasion arise.) She is instantly surrounded by people offering towels and words of support. Among them is Paul Talrick, who can tell when the crowd is against him. Your daughter doesn’t even acknowledge his presence. He just doesn’t exist in her world any more.    
  
She pushes her hair out of the way with one hand and then, almost stealthily moves it to her ears to check to see if her earrings (the ones you let her borrow for the evening) remained with her through her misadventure. You want to go to her, but you’re afraid if you do, it will spoil the cool, in control image she is trying to project. She catches your eye and smiles reassuringly. Then, with a towel still wrapped around her like a shawl of the finest wool, she walks up to the house, with her head held high.  
  
“How does she do it? Where does she find all that grace and poise?” you wonder out loud, knowing without looking that Josh has materialized at your side.  
  
“You should know, Donna!” he laughs. “She gets it from you!”  
  
You blink, startled. You never even considered that before. You are saved from responding by the sound of another splash coming from the pool. The jerk who pushed your daughter into the water is now flailing around and sputtering.  
  
“Ooops,” your son says benignly and strolls away from the water’s edge. You and your husband grin at each other and voice the same thought at the same time.  
  
“He gets _that_ from _you_!”


End file.
